


The Loneliest Road

by ishafel



Category: Highlander: The Series, The OC
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-11
Updated: 2011-03-11
Packaged: 2017-10-16 21:05:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/169343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishafel/pseuds/ishafel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One survivor to another.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Loneliest Road

Take a ruler, and mark the point halfway between Newport and Chino. That was where Theresa's car broke down, at nine o'clock on a Saturday night. And if he'd still had a cell phone Ryan could have called Sandy, or AAA; but he wouldn't have called Sandy, even knowing Sandy would've come in a heartbeat. And he couldn't have afforded AAA. So instead he got out, and stood for a long moment looking at the smoke pouring from under the yellow convertible's hood. He would have liked to kick the car as hard as he could, dent the hubcaps, smash the lights, shatter the windshield. But rage like that was a luxury he'd never been able to afford. He'd learned a long time ago that if he broke his toys they stayed broken.

He turned his back on the car and started walking. It was hot and it would take him hours to get home; he'd have to find a town and a bus schedule and a bus, and Theresa would worry because he was late and he had to be at work first thing in the morning. He had gone maybe a quarter of a mile when a dark SUV flashed its lights at him and pulled over in a spray of gravel. Ryan jumped back, swearing, but the SUV's driver was putting down his window.

"Need a lift, kid?" he asked, his voice just audible over the roar of the traffic. Ryan got in without a word, and without a second thought. He was so tired, so tired of being tired. He leaned back into the leather seat, and watched as the driver muscled the big car back into the heavy traffic. It was a relief to let his attention wander, to watch as the man drove the car one-handed, in a way that reminded him of Sandy. The rearview mirror was a blur of lights and shadows, the road and the back seat of the car.

And on the floor in the back, wrapped in an old dark towel so that only their hilts showed, a pair of swords fancier than anything Ryan had seen outside of a museum. Ryan looked away, and caught the driver's eye. He felt suddenly uncomfortable. There was nothing wrong with having swords in your car, no reason that someone who could afford the Merc couldn't afford a couple of antiques like that. And sure, most people would have transported the swords in a fancy carrier, and not picked up a stranger with them in the car, but there wasn't anything wrong. Not necessarily. It was funny, though, that they didn't look like antiques, not the way swords in museums did. They looked like weapons to Ryan.

The guy asked him where he was headed, and Ryan turned to look at him when he told him, "Chino." He was youngish, maybe as twenty-seven or as old as thirty-five, white and preppily dressed to match his faint British accent. He looked like a nice enough guy, really, on his way home from the office or something. His tie gone, and the cuffs of his shirt rolled to his elbows, and his hands on the wheel clean and capable. But there was a smear of something rust-colored, on the outside of his arm just above his elbow. It might have been ketchup, or maybe he was prone to nosebleeds; just because there were the swords in the back there was no reason to think anything of it. Except Ryan had been in enough fights himself to know what dried blood looked like.

He followed Ryan's directions, not seeming to notice when the neighborhood went downhill. He didn't seem like the kind of guy who worried about things like that. He drew the car up to the curb outside Ryan's crappy building, and Ryan got out, feeling a little relieved. He turned to thank the guy, remembering he didn't even know his name, and their eyes met. And Ryan had always felt old, older than Trey, Marissa, Seth, sometimes older than Sandy and Kirsten and even Caleb, but something about this guy's eyes made him feel like a kid. He opened his mouth to say something, anything, and the guy said to him, "Take care, kid. One survivor to another," and gave Ryan this funny little two-fingered salute that made Ryan think of a gladiator. And Ryan pushed the door closed with out a word and watched the guy drive away, until long after he'd disappeared.


End file.
